Tattoo
by blackanubis9
Summary: AU Riddick is a little darker; he is stalking a woman, living in her attic, and trying to figure out the mystery surrounding her. He has always thought he was the most dangerous man alive. Her world will show him the possibility that he is wrong.


Disclaimer: Pitch Black and all its' characters are not mine. We all know this sad fact of life. Just like we all know the only thing we have to gain is our own enjoyment.

Chapter 1

He'd gotten lucky. Been lucky for almost six months and not a sign of mercs on his tail. Now he just needed to find a place to lay low on the piece of dirt he was on before deciding where to go from there. It was lucky, finding this planet that was barely settled. Some sort of geological find, mining had died out about five years back. Most people left, and the few who stayed had gotten used to 12 hours of light a day. His kind of planet. Actually, his kind of planet would be one that never knew daylight, but this was still good. Lots of different kinds of people here, so his huge frame and shined eyes didn't stick out. Something weird about the place, though. It took him a few weeks to figure out why every once in a while everyone would disappear. Then he caught sight of one of the raiding parties and understood. This planet was fairly close to a pirating system, after all. Seems these people had built places to hide when raiders, pirates, or mercs decided to come calling. Smart. By that time he had found something else to peak his interest; scum he knew and generally bored him. Been there, killed that already.

It had happened entirely by chance.

He had stepped out of the small room he was renting from an older couple. Nice, but hardened, people who only asked that he not bring trouble and pay rent on time. The second was easy, the first has been a close thing a couple of times. He had been on his way to get supplies, trying to decide if he wanted to pick up an extra shift or not. The small spaceport they had was the primary employer of the planet, as the shitty planet was a place to refuel and restock, not one to take in the sights.

He saw her stepping out of the engineering offices of the spaceport. He had been on his way to try to work an extra shift when he saw her. She wasn't anything special to look at, but not ugly either. She had one of those faces where on anyone else, if anyone else tried to make that nose and eyes, those lips go together and look appealing, they would have failed. It wasn't because she was comfortable with who she was or some other bullshit, it was something inside. Her face was strangely drawing because you could feel there was something unusual, something special, underneath it. Intrigued, he followed her to her home, which turned out to be much nicer than he had imagined. Not large, but just enough for two people. He honestly couldn't say why he felt compelled to watch the house, but he did. He wanted to know why he felt drawn to her. And it seemed to be just him. Men passed her on the street without giving her another glance, if they even gave her one in the first place. She just carried herself with a barely contained energy, like she knew a secret and was humming with the need to tell someone.

He watched the house all day without seeing one other person go inside. He left before dark to make it to his shift on time, but his mind was still on her. He needed to know who she was.

It hadn't taken much to find out everything about her. Well, everything about her since arriving on the planet. Gracie worked in the engineering department, the only female grease monkey. She went by Gray, hated to be called Gracie. No reason why, though. She lived alone, ate alone at work, and seemed to be quiet by nature. No one he spoke with had anything bad to say about her, but they also didn't have a lot to say, either. She didn't date, didn't go out with her coworkers, just went to work and went home.

He had learned long ago that it was a fact of life that everyone has secrets. Someone like her... she probably had more than her fair share. And he wanted to know what they were.

He let his renters know he was moving out, giving them some story about moving in with his girlfriend. By then he knew Gray's habits, and he moved his few belongings into her attic while she was at work. They both worked the night shift, and it seemed that she preferred the dark. She had heavy drapes over the windows, a rich green color. Not a spec of white on any of the walls. No pictures on the walls, not a one. He went through the house and found it very sparce, as though she were a minimalist. Her medicine cabinet had a toothbrush and paste, a few necessities, but nothing elaborate or girly, as he was used to seeing. Females always seemed to need so much stuff in their bathrooms, yet she did not. The only luxury she seemed to indulge in was her soap. Spearmint and eucalyptus, it was minty and earthy to his nose. One room was locked, and he saved it for later, when he would have more time. Anything with multiple locks on it had to be good. The bedroom was also bare, with a dresser and a bed. The dresser had a few earrings on top of it, as she had many piercings on her ears, and her clothes were sensible and sturdy. A few frills, but just enough to assure him that she wasn't a little on the butch side. A look under her bed proved to be the jackpot. A non-descript, unremarkable bag that he almost passed over proved to have several changes of clothes, toiletries, currency, and guns. Lots of guns, knives, everything a killer needed to go on a happy spree. It was also just enough that she could grab it and run with the bare essentials. People aren't prepared to run at a moment's notice unless they are fairly sure there could be a need. Not something her neighbors had under their beds, he could guarantee that.

"Interesting."

Just to satisfy his own curiosity, he had approached her after work one day and asked to take her for a cup of coffee, wherever she wanted to go. She had thanked him sincerely for his interest, her exact words, but very politely declined. His sharp ears had picked up the regret, as though it was not her decision to make, she had to turn him down. What had surprised him was that she had not once allowed herself to check him out. Women always took the liberty to undress him mentally. He never discouraged it, as it made it so much easier to scratch the occasional itch, but once she had realized what she was doing, she kept her eyes firmly on his. As though she did not want to disrespect him by perusing him like a slab of beef. He honestly didn't give two shits about that, he didn't trust any respect he was given that was not driven by fear. Still, instead of making more sense, his interaction with her just added more questions.

He was grateful that he could tell so much by the sounds people made when they moved around; he was very hesitant to put cameras in all the rooms. Cameras were for work, and work only ended when someone died. There was no profit in killing her, and she had given him no reason. So, ear to the floor it was. She was a creature of habit, that he learned very early on. She came home and took a shower. Gray was the first woman he had ever known to take a three minute shower consistently. Usually less than three minutes. He filed that fact away in the same place as the duffel under her bed. She would make dinner, and it usually was torture. Not having any appliances, he ate prepackaged food. She made food from scratch, and the aromas were enough to make him drool onto her ceiling. After clean up, she watched a little vid, usually not more than an hour. From then until the time she went to bed, she was in that locked room, which happened to be soundproof. Frustrating.

He loved to watch her sleep. Never requiring more than a few hours each day himself, he would slip into her bedroom and watch her. Her face never relaxed in sleep, it became guarded and hard. Not often, but occassionally she would have bad dreams, and the only way he knew if she was or not was her body. Her entire body would tense, her back almost bowing off the mattress, her fists white from lack of blood. Sometimes her dreams would last long past the point of exhaustion, her entire body trembling with the effort to contain something. Her screams? Her face never showed any signs of distress, other than a slight frown. He knew he had nightmares from time to time, but even he couldn't supress his roars of pain and rage. When her dream was over, her body would collapse and she would sleep as if nothing had happened. In the morning, she would take another quick shower and go to work. After a week of this same routine, he knew he needed to get into that room. That room had everything he wanted to know, and didn't.

It had been three weeks since he had moved in, and he still had not gotten in that room. He had figured out the problem early on. There were seven locks on the door, and half of them locked from the inside. Smart for raids. But the fourth one on the outside was his problem. Key locks he could pick, computer locks he could hack, but that last lock was something he had never seen before. And whatever she used to unlock it was around her neck. Normally that would not have presented a problem, as he could give an experienced thief some pretty healthy competition, but she was not your normal mark. He had begun to notice subtle differences in her compared to most people. She lived in a nice house, which would tend to make her a target for robbers, but she had no security. No motion sensors, no trip wires on the perimeter, nothing. That was question one.

The planet was a temperate one, usually staying warm year-round at about 70-75 degrees F. Yet she always wore long sleeves and mechanic's pants. She even slept in a long sleeved shirt. She wasn't what women considered fat; it was hard to tell because her clothes purposely obscured her body shape, but he could tell she had strength, so she wasn't hiding her body for that reason. Did she have horrible scars, or was she hiding a slave tattoo? Was it a medical or genetic condition? Question two.

He had begun to suspect that she was not entirely human. Maybe a hybrid or another humanoid species, like him. He could hear every little sound, even through the roof, made by dogs or neighbors outside of the house. She never acknowledged them, so he had assumed she had normal hearing. He had to discard that assumption when he heard the distant sound of a raid siren at the end of his second week at her house. Each town had three, just in case one could not be reached in time or was destroyed. Only one siren had been triggered, and it was the one furthest from her house. No one with normal hearing would have picked it up, and he had been debating on whether to reveal himself or not to warn her, but she had already burst out of the shower and into her locked room. To hear the siren over the sound of running water told him that she had very acute hearing. Perhaps better than his. Which made him wonder why she had not heard him? Sure, he moved silently anyway, and as little as possible, but with hearing that good she had to have heard him moving around sometime, right? Hence the sound proofing of the attic the next day. But that still left him with the certainty that she was not an average human being. Question three.

Too many questions, and sitting around watching her do normal human things was not going to answer them. He needed that damn key for the fourth lock.

He had been working three shifts in a row, and was tired, hungry, and frustrated. He had decided to lift her necklace while she was in the shower, which was the only time she ever took it off. It was risky, because even though he had studied it plenty while she was sleeping, he had to guess the weight. Interestingly enough, her necklage appeared to be dog tags, like were used in the military a few hundred years ago. Of course, those were long obsolete, as ID's were now microchips inserted in the body. He only needed to get his hands on them for thirty seconds, long enough to scan them. But her shift had changed. She now worked the first shift, while he was sleeping, and had been working extra shifts like him. So he could never really predict when she would be home. Lately she had been coming home, taking a shower that lasted only long enough to wash the skin if she were racing. He had actually timed her at a forty second shower. He needed a good minute to get in, lift the necklace, scan it, and place it back on the sink exactly as she had placed it. He knew her well enough by then to know she would notice if the necklace were placed differently. He admired her automatic attention to the little details, as it was something he had taught himself years ago, but it was another complication, another thing keeping him from that fucking necklace. Another reason he had to wait until she got back into her old routine, or at least until she stopped working all those extra shifts.

After three shifts, he decided to take a break from Gray and spend the weekend at the bordello. He had the money, hell, now that he was staying at Gray's and only needed to buy food and clothes, he had all the money he would ever need. But while the beast had been quiet for those three weeks, seemingly intrigued by her as well, he was now getting restless. It had been months since he had killed anything, and a month since he had fucked a woman. He needed to let off a little steam and let the beast play. Perhaps a weekend away would help him to look at everything a little more clearly.

Yeah, right. He just really needed to get laid.

He shelled out the huge amount of money needed to spend the weekend there with several of the girls. He usually went for brunettes, hated blondes, and was very picky about red heads. Most of them were more trouble than they were worth. He tossed back a few beers and watched all the women that were working a Friday night. He picked a tall brunette with freckles and a petite blonde, only because he could smell the blonde on the brunette. They took him back to the brunette's room, and the smell of the blonde was all over the bed. He sat in a chair, content to watch them amuse themselves. He took off his shirt and left his pants open, just relaxing to the smell of aroused women. The beast would have his turn later; there was only one woman at the bordello that liked to play with the beast, and she was taken already for the night. Watching the women slowly become mad with need, he stood up and let his pants fall to the floor. Approaching the bed, he moved to the headboard, his hands clasped behind his head. Legs out straight, he waited for them to decide what they wanted to do. The two girls only looked at each other for a moment before they gave him evil grins, which he returned. It was going to be a good weekend, he just knew it.

He woke up to the sounds of them dressing, noting with masculine pride that they seemed to be very stiff and hesitant to bend at the waist. He used the bathroom down the hall, only for use by those paying for the weekend, showered, and trudged downstairs to eat. Looking around, he saw the few other men who were there; most had paid for a single round and had left hours before. He ordered a rare steak and eggs, telling the cook to leave his steak bloody. Wolfing down the food, he casually inspected the other men. Most of them were suckers; they had money to spend, and after their dicks had been swirled by a woman, they were more relaxed and unguarded. He chuckled to himself at the possibility that he could be able to pay for the weekend if he got a poker game started. He knew he had a few hours to kill, as most of the women were now sleeping off their nightly activities. He bet his two women were still playing, though; they had been nearly as insatiable as himself. He would have to remember to pay for the two of them again some time.

He waited until the other men had eaten before rounding up players and some cards. He had the ability to count cards, so to hide the fact that he won more than he lost, he would occasionally slip a few chips into his pocket. If his pile didn't look too much bigger than everyone else's, it was harder for men to take offense and start something. While a fight would have been welcome, he did not want to waste the creds he had spent on staying at the bordello, so he went with subtle. He bowed out before everyone had lost all their chips, knowing that if they still had more money the next morning, he could always let them try to win back what they had lost. They wouldn't, but they would be coming back with more money, and that was worth a second game. He would clean them out then. Noticing it was early afternoon, he decided to lounge out on one of the plush sofas that was wedged in a corner, for privacy. He knew he would need a nap, because tonight the beast got to play. He had already reserved his girl, he was just waiting for her to get her sleep. She also knew to get rested when he reserved her. It was always strange to him that the beast always wanted to know the name of his girls. Personally, Riddick couldn't give a shit less. But perhaps it was because very few women could handle the beast, he wanted to know who he was fucking. Whatever, it would be nice for him to take a day off and just think about Gray while the beast was fucking around. He settled down for a light nap, knowing he would not be the one who woke up.

Waking up with a start, he looked around carefully. Something had woken him up. He noticed a woman sleeping beside him, but did not look her way. He could feel the beast pacing inside, knew that he felt it as well. Standing up, he was dressed in seconds and out the door. It was still very early, barely light outside, and as he walked down the stairs to bar, he could tell that whatever was making him uneasy was not at the bordello. Mercs? No, it didn't feel like them. Raiders? He didn't know, and it angered him. A picture of Gray popped into mind, and he became uneasy instantly. Cursing the fact that she lived on the other side of town, he took off at a run, thankful that it was early Sunday morning, and almost no one would be up to question why a man was running top speed through town. He had just passed her neighbor's house, as she was the last one on her street, and he slowed down, hearing the sounds of fighting. He cut through the trees, sprinting around to the back side of the house, where there were more windows to see what was going on. He could see a hover a few hundred feet away, one man waiting. He took him out quietly and almost destroyed the hover, but decided against it. If Gray was hurt and needed a doctor, the hover would be much faster than his own feet, especially as he had only slept a few hours and had run across town once already. He could hear male screaming inside the house and opted for the front door. It gave way under his boot and he burst into the living room, noting that all the sounds seemed to be coming from the bedroom. He saw a few dead men on the floor, but they were not dressed like raiders or pirates. Not mercs, either. Curious. His shivs in hand, he headed for her bedroom, hearing the sound of metal on bone. Standing in the doorway, he watched her tackle a man that was trying to aim his gun at her. Five against one seemed unfair, especially as it had originally been ten to one. Gray and the man went flying over her bed, and he took the opportunity to slip in behind the others. They noticed him quickly, too quickly to be mere bounty hunters. They were trained well. The beast howled in excitement, and he let him out enough to make up for the numbers. He was quickly surrounded by three of them, and was too occupied to prevent the fourth from scrambling over the bed towards Gray. With very little room to maneuver, he let a shiv fly towards one throat, and dodged the other knife and gun that were aimed at him. The gun shot went beside his head, barely grazing his ear. Yanking the gun, and the man carrying it, forward, he twisted his body so that his back was pulled against the chest of the man. Now in control of the gun and the arm attatched to it, he aimed at the knife weilder, forcing fingers to squeeze the trigger and kill him. Another pivot brought his shiv in contact with the gun man's throat, and he was rounding the bed before the man had even fallen, shiv dripping blood. He heard quiet grunting and saw Gray was trying to push both men's bodies off of her. Blood covered all three of them, and he couldn't tell off hand how much was hers. Sheathing his shiv behind his back, he dragged one man away by his feet, letting her push the other one to the side. He was cautious and gave her plenty of space, as she was still high on adrenaline and in attack mode. He stood up and put his hands up by his shoulders, showing his empty hands. She palmed a knife from one of the bodies and stood up unsteadily.

"You... the man living... upstairs?"

_So she did know._

"_**Yes. Who are they? Pirates, raiders?" **_None of his surprise showed on his face, the beast was too busy savoring the kills they had just made. A quick glance over her showed a nasty cut on her head that was steadily bleeding, but everything else was covered. She had somehow managed to keep her clothes from being cut. She coughed before answering him, and he took a sniff for blood that would indicate any internal bleeding, but could smell none.

"No. Assassins. You... should go. There will be more." Her knees gave out and she tried to put a hand on the bed, as if she could hold herself up. He stood where he was, not wanting her to lash out. She went down on her hands and knees, holding her left side with one arm as she coughed again.

"_**Do you have a safe place where I can take you?**_" He waited for her coughing to continue, but when she began to get to her feet, he stepped in and picked her up by the waist. Once her feet were on the floor, and he was sure she could stay there, he took a step back and held out his hand, looking pointedly at her necklace. Her eyes darted imperceptibly towards the locked door, but he caught it. He saw suspicion and caution enter her eyes and took another step back.

"_**Look, I've been up there for three weeks and I haven't done anything to you. If you say there's more of them coming, then you need to get patched up before you have any kind of chance of leaving this house breathing. I've had all the chances I would need if I was going to kill you. I don't have any plans to sell you, or whatever it is you think I'm gonna do. So give me the key."**_ The last sentence was a clear command, his patience nearly gone. If she were anyone else, he would have left once he had finished killing. He didn't need anyone to put the way his three kills were done to his name and make the connection, so he would have been half way to the spaceport by now. But assassins weren't sent for just anyone; they were sent for people that needed to be killed quietly, and their secrets taken with them. Fuck, now he had to know who she was - besides the fact that she took down two men who were practically on top of her in the same time it took him to kill three.

She pulled her dog tags off with one hand, letting the wall hold her up for a moment. She seemed more resigned at that point than anything. Either he would see what was in that room and kill her, or he wouldn't. He snatched them from her and opened all the locks with a sure hand that had done it many times before, a fact that was not lost on her.

"Why have you been watching me?" He grabbed the door knob, but turned to answer her question first.

"_**Do you know who I am?"**_ When she shook her head, he chuckled darkly.

"_**You are the first person I have ever been curious about. Make no mistake, honey, I am a murderer, one of the best, but I don't do it for no reason. Don't give me one."**_ He opened the room and started to go inside, but stopped. He leaned over and wrenched his other shiv out the assassin's throat, cleaning it off on the dead man's clothing and hiding it away on his body before going inside. She watched how quickly it was gone from sight and knew he wasn't lying. She walked behind him, giving him space to check out the room like an animal in a new house. He inspected it carefully, noting the trap door hidden in the floor. Not seeing anything suspicious, or any video cameras, he turned to her and pointed to a chair as he walked out the door.

"_**Sit.**_" She sat down and waited for him to return. He came back in seconds with an armful of food and her duffel bag from underneath the bed. He handed her a jug of orange juice and dumped the rest of the food in a corner. She watched his eyes, waiting for him to see the one thing that would have him reaching for his shivs. His eyes, however, remained focused on his tasks. He pulled out some of her spare clothes from the bag.

"_**Where'd you get hit?**_" She took a chug before complying with the unspoken command. She stood up and pulled off her shirt, careful to keep her back out of sight. He noted the bruises over a couple of ribs, bruises that were finger-shaped. Well-aimed blows designed the break the ribs inwardly, puncturing the ribs. He extended a hand to see if they were truly broken, or merely bruised. She tried to keep herself from automatically shielding her back, but she was afraid that he caught the tiny movement of muscles before she could relax them. He gave no indication that did, totally focused on her ribs. Gentle fingers ran over her ribs, pressing only as hard as necessary to feel for breaks. Satisfied that they were only bruised, he handed her a new shirt, turning around to give her as much privacy as he could. She carefully pulled it on, keeping her breath steady through the pain. She had pulled both sleeves on and had just gotten her head in the shirt when his hands stopped her from pulling her shirt down. Gray could feel his breath on her cheek. He started to circle around to her back, so she tried to follow him, turning as he did. He kept one hand on her right arm, pulling her towards him in a circle. She fought the movement, yanking her arm back as best as she could with her arms still trapped in her shirt and bruised ribs. His hands suddenly ripped her shirt back off and grabbed her arms so hard that her mouth opened in a soundless cry. Ignoring the blood still dripping down her hair and onto the floor, he pulled her arms up close to his chest until her nose was almost touching his. His teeth were pulled back in a grimace, as aggressive dogs show their teeth, and she could feel the growl rumbling from his chest through to hers. She had a panicked thought that he was going to bite her nose off before sanity reasserted itself. The air around them was deathly still, as if he weren't even breathing, even though she was in short pants, trying to regain her measured breathing. But then his voice hit her, and she knew it was not the same person that handed her the jug of juice five minutes ago. There was no way one person could have two voices that different, especially one that sounded like death. And this was the voice of death speaking to her.

"_**What are you hiding on your back, little girl?"**_


End file.
